The Historic Bothwell

Staying over in Sedalia tonight at the lovely old hotel, the Bothwell. Historic and -- allegedly -- haunted.

Interesting conversation with Liz, the assistant manager, and Tanya, the night desk clerk. As I'm passing through the lobby to go outside, I notice them sitting on the lobby's big leather sofas, chatting, and so I ask Liz if the hotel is supposed to be haunted. She gets this strange look and asks me if I feel like it is. I'm not one of those "sensitive" people, I say. In fact, I'm downright insensitive.

She says she has always had the feeling that she's not alone here at night, and that people have had experiences.

Of course, I want to hear all about them. So she tells me about a guest on the floor below mine who asked to be moved to another room because his boots keep coming off the top shelf of his closet. And that the old brass-gate elevator goes up and down by itself.

Tanya tells me about her experience. Apparently, one evening, the doorbell was broken. Repairmen had come to fix it, but needed parts, so they left the broken doorbell mechanism torn apart on the front counter until they could come back the next day to finish repairing it. A little while later, Tanya and another staff member heard the doorbell ringing.

Should have brought some ghost-hunting equipment!

Powell Gardens

It has been so long since I've been to this part of the country, I forgot about the music that never stops here -- the cicadas, crickets and birds. And the smell! The air here is warm and green-sweet, as if you're always on the banks of a river or lake.

Happy to find that K.C. barbecue is everything people say it is. They make a mean mojito in K.C., too.

Got up this morning and crossed the Missouri River into Missouri, and stopped for a long walk through Powell Gardens, about 30 miles outside the city. As soon as I got out past the suburbs, the cicadas and crickets started up.

Powell Gardens is K.C.'s botanical garden, with perennials, native plants, an island garden, waterfalls and a nature trail. Gorgeous!

A large, purple butterfly followed me through the entrance, landing on my shirt whenever I'd stop.

The park is so well-loved and cared for. I wish I'd known about it beforehand, because I just missed Full Moon Friday, a fundraiser that this month featured lillies and moonlight walks through the grounds. I can imagine the park aglow with fireflies in the evenings.

It's so humid here, it felt like walking through water along the park trails, and by the time I got back to my car, I felt a little lightheaded and high. I wanted to lie down in the grass and look up at the trees until I fell asleep with butterflies all around me.

I wish mom and dad could have seen this garden. Dad would have loved all the different, colorful flowers, and mom would have loved the dogwoods and peonies.

Kansas, Woooo!

Halfway across Kans-ass! I'm in Hutchinson tonight, just a couple hundred miles from Kansas City.

You can't say Kansans have no sense of humor. All along the drive, I kept seeing signs that said "Mountain route," but nothing remotely resembling a mountain. Anywhere.

I kept expecting to see signs saying "Ski Kansas."

I did see Boot Hill, though.

The absolute best part of the drive? 27 miles -- no exaggeration -- of road that's being resurfaced, but in the meantime, it's like driving over 27 miles of rumble strip. Five miles after the road was good again, my head was still vibrating.

I saw a "horse motel" but didn't stop, a marquee sign reading "We have Coca Cola" and "New! ATM" like it was the first time Kansas had ever had either, and a sign for the Garden City Zoo promising "Tall, Tall Giraffes." I guess African giraffes are just regular-tall. These Kansas giraffes, I expect, are as tall as the Sears Tower.

Wired in LaJunta

I had to stop in LaJunta, Colorado, to find a place where cell phones and wireless connections are in people's vocabularies, and they understand that cappuccino is made with espresso.

However, the trip to see Mark's band play in Trinidad last night was fun.

I stopped in Blanca, Colorado, distracted by an enormous buffalo named Joe. Joe's owner, R.V. (not making that up) owns a trading post/history center/B&B that's in the works, and he and his wife were pleased to show me their animals and describe their plans, give me a Louisiana-visit itinerary and kindly let me know that although they don't go to church, they do believe in God, and would be praying that my journey takes me to wherever He wants me to be.

R.V., busily sharpening his pocket knife on a piece of sandpaper, also let me know (as soon as he saw my California plates) none of the animals -- especially Joe -- are being abused in any way. I felt a little stereotyped, except he was right -- I was wondering.

Joe was not down with petting, but Papa, the Dorado sheep (who looks suspiciously like a goat) was very much in favor of a little forehead-rubbing, as were the horses, especially when I had handfuls of R.V.'s hand-mixed molasses oats.

R.V., whose eyes are exactly the same color as his faded denim shirt, explained to me how not enough people understand their heritage and history, so it's his intention to keep a piece of the Old West alive in a peaceful spot where people can spend time "lettin' their cogitations roam around in their heads and take some shapes." He plans to offer a history center where people can see more than 200 demonstrations of things like soap making and chuckwagon cookery.

So far, the history center/trading post/B&B is just an L-shaped hole in the ground, surrounded by a teepee, a lean-to with some jewelry, rugs and pottery for sale, a small log shed where R.V. cuts wood, a campfire circled by plastic lawn chairs and some horses that can be rented for brief trail rides.

In a few years, though, it will be THE place to stop for people driving through the Sangre de Cristos.

The horse rides were extremely tempting, but my cogitations were also demanding some time, so I headed east for Walsenburg. Hung out with Mark, swapped journalism stories, played catch-up and then drove about half an hour south to Trinidad, where Mark's jazz combo would be performing at the brewpub.

These guys are good. I had no idea Mark was such a skilled saxophone player. And Dave and Tom, the drummer and bassist, in addition to being really nice guys, pretty much rock.

Dave and I bonded over our shared love of Chicago, our shared residence in the Seattle area and, miraculously, our shared love of Cheap Trick! You never know where you'll find fellow fans.

Even though nothing in Trinidad worked -- including the pay-at-the-pump gas station or the car wash (Wolfgang is desperately in need of a bath), and my hotel room was quite a step down from the South Fork sah-weet (let's just say I'm glad I didn't have a black light, or I would have run screaming for a bottle of Clorox) it was a great time!

I'm getting near the Kans-ass border (the iPod is fully charged and I'm about to take a couple of No-Doz with a double espresso), but wanted to post about yesterday, and include this picture of Blanca Peak.

Brokeback Wichita

Clearly, the little sign that says "please don't add soap, oil or bubble bath to the jacuzzi" still doesn't apply to me. As my friend Jen said, that's for stupid people.

You might think the "please" in the sign, or last night's bubble fiasco, would have dissuaded me. You'd be wrong.

Now, however, I've successfully discovered the correct bubble-bath-to-jacuzzi ratio. I controlled my chaos.

I'm leaving my jacuzzi sah-weet in the a.m., but still, if I ever get upgraded again, I'll know how not to leave evidence of my flagrant disregard for the rules.

Damn, it feels good to be a gangstah.

Tomorrow, I'm off for the greater Pueblo area. My first editor, Mark, invited me to come watch his jazz band play tomorrow night. He said I could come and heckle him while he plays the sax!

Pass that up? Never.

Friday, I'll head for Kansas.

I think I spoke with Ennis from "Brokeback Mountain" tonight when I called a Wichita Walgreens.

I want a certain kind of medicine (yes, I am that high-maintenance), and my pharmacist (my personal pharmacist in California) said I could just call ahead by a day or two and ask any Walgreens to cater to me.

So I called, and the pharmacist sounded exactly like Heath Ledger doing his cowboy drawl in the movie, all low and mumbly like that.

I explained my needs, and Wichita's Ennis said "Nope, cain't order nothin' special for ya."

Sorry, Ennis, but I'ma have to quit you before we even get to meet.

Slow to storm

No new pictures today. I barely left the hotel because I was working on, well, work. Writing a press release, trying to make appointments and organizing files.

The only time I left was to run to the Rainbow Grocery/Sporting Goods Store (I'm not joking) for oatmeal bars, apples and almonds. Exciting, huh? It's the only market in South Fork.

The storm clouds take forever to gather here. It has been slowly getting darker, and it looks like it might finally be about to rain. It has been a nice day, working, talking to friends old and new, and a nice long soak in the jacuzzi. I figured out why they ask guests not to add bubble bath to the tub. Oops.

There have been hawks flying around here all day -- beautiful.

The Continental Divide

Now I get why my dad used to be so grumpy when we went on road trips that took us up and over mountain passes. I drove up the Continental Divide over Wolf Creek Pass -- in the dark. Not so smart, really, both because going up at twilight, it looked like it was beautiful and I couldn't really stop to take pictures because it was already too dark for that and because it's really, really freakin' steep and you don't want to lose steam.

So I'm stealing someone else's photo, just so you can see what I would have seen had I driven it during the day.

On the way up, I saw a waterfall, little lakes with trees in the middle of them and several young bucks standing along the side of the road.

The summit is 10,080 feet.

Going down, it was dark. Dark dark. And the deerlings were poised right along the side of the road, in perfect leaping distance to the front of my car. Not only do I not want to hurt a deer, I don't want to hurt my car. There was a big-ass semi right behind me all the way down the 8 percent grade. About halfway down, I got so tense, I had to turn off one of my favorite Cheap Trick CDs. Just couldn't take it. I get why my dad used to tell me to shut up with the "When are we gonna be there? I'm thirsty! Dad!" Seriously. If anyone had been asking me those questions tonight, I would have barked at them, too.

I'm staying in South Fork for the next couple of days, working from a nice little hotel with wi-fi where the very nice desk clerk upgraded me to the "jacuzzi suite" for the same low, low online price as a regular room. It's sah-weet! From the balcony, I can look out on the half-cloudy, half-starry sky (Peter Pan sky, I always think when it looks like that), and for the first time, it's cool and lovely out. Plus, it really has a jacuzzi tub.

Had dinner with Dan and Robin, who, I swear, is going into labor before the week is up. Dan says Aug. 3, but I think Gracie Bella is going to make an appearance any moment. We met up in Durango -- charming town! Touristy, but so cute. Like a bigger Sonora with more to see and do.

I'm excited for Thursday, when I get to meet up with Mark, my first editor, who lives near Pueblo. I'm just hoping to persuade him to say, like he used to when I was a cubby reporter, "Get your ass in here and turn out some copy."

The high desert was beautiful, but I sure am glad to be in the mountains. Trees! Grass! Lakes! Rivers! And a glorious thunderstorm in Durango that lasted for about 30 miles. Yay!

Even more

And Monument Valley:

More pictures

Some more pics from Zion...

Zion and Monument Valley...

...are amazing. The West is clearly a place of upheaval. Monument Valley -- can't even imagine how that was formed.

Unfortunately, there were fires in and near Zion, so many of my pictures are quite smoky. It's hard to imagine just how huge the canyon formations are without seeing them firsthand. But I think some of the pictures came out well enough.

Beautiful weather -- warm, but not too warm, and now, here in Cortez, Colorado, I have thunderstorms, wind, lightning and the grey buttes just outside Mesa Verde. Other than finishing the HP book today, nothing eventful. Been on the road since 7:30 this morning, got in around 5 and got a great hotel room on a reservation for $50 that's a lot nicer than the Holiday Inn room I stayed in last night. Plus, it's at a casino. I think I'll go play some blackjack. See if I can win enough to pay for part of the trip!

I also got to see a semi-wild herd of buffalo. I say semi because they were fenced in and being fed, but the sign said they were wild and that people should not approach them. I did, of course. And took a picture of a baby buffalo.

I'll post more pics above.

I heart Zion

Every now and then I have one of those moments where I realize my - and by "my" I mean humankind's - insignificance. Zion National Park'll do that to me, I guess.

I only saw a very small portion today, but staring up at the monumentally huge canyon walls, shaped by forces that have no concern for us and have absolutely nothing to do with us, thinking about the millenia that have etched their lines on the faces of those walls, gave me that overwhelmingly small feeling.

I think I just have to let some pictures speak for me. My plan is to enter the park from the other side tomorrow and spend a good portion of the day wandering around.

If the skies are clear (which they are not this afternoon), I'll go see the Grand Canyon, too, though I refuse to go out on the glass-bottomed walkway. Some things are just too freaky for me.

I'll drop down into Arizona and over to Colorado on Monday, and hole up somwhere to work. It's hot and smoky and overcast here in St. George. I've been listening to the new HP book on CD as I drive, but I also have a copy to read while I'm not in the car.

I think I'll go sit in the pool and read for a while.

So far, the trip has been great. And safe.

Oh, one more thing. If you want to read about a real adventure, check out http://sailconfetti.blogspot.com/. My fabulous niece, Liz, and her friends are sailing the Pacific.

Harry Potter and the Great Salty, Smelly Lake

Now I wish I was a poet, because I'd write a sonnet to the amazing Italian food I just ate at Cucina Toscano here in SLC. Best Italian food I've had since I was in Italy. Italian bread with a pesto-oil-Balsamic dip, asparagus soup, little, fluffy gnocchi and lemon gelato with blueberries and raspberries. I couldn't eat nearly all of it, and now I have to stay up until 2 a.m. to get the Harry Potter book simply so I can digest this food.

It turned out to be a good thing I went to the Great Salt Lake before dinner, because while it was beautiful, it smelled bad. Like sewage bad. And salty. Plus, I had to wait in a line of traffic for a rap concert. A rap concert at the Great Salt Lake.

Here's a picture. Now I have to go lie down or, alternately, turn my room into a Roman vomitorivm.

Thank you, Phyllis

It hadn't even occurred to me that to get to SLC from Boise, I'd have to pass Twin Falls, where, allegedly, I was conceived. Straight out of a country song: Mama was a waitress, daddy was a truck driver.

It didn't actually occur to me until I was about 30 miles west of the town. I84 East doesn't go straight into Twin Falls; you have to turn off. I didn't. I passed plenty of truck stops, though, any one of which might have been where Phyllis and Mr. X met, making eyes over plates of salisbury steak with fries and cups of hot joe.

Up to the Twin Falls turnoff, that part of Idaho is scrubby and ass-ugly. After the turnoff, it becomes farmland until it gets scrubby again -- scorched and smoking earth at the Utah border, recent fires not completely extinguished.

Thank you, Phyllis, for not letting me grow up there, out in the middle of nowhere, the unwanted child of some illicit affair. Thank you for going to San Clemente, having me there and giving me up to the doctor who delivered me. You made the better choice.

SLC is hot, hot. hot. I'm going to go out when the light's better and take some pictures of the Great Salt Lake.

But here's my first view of Utah.

Crossed into Mountain Time

If I was a poet, I'd offer up stanzas about the desolate beauty of the Whitebird Grade and its steep, sweeping curves leading down into Hell's Canyon along the Salmon River, and Lapwai, the land of butterflies, which sounds much prettier than it is because it's on the Nez Perce reservation and they obviously got the short end of the stick, living in hideous trailers and selling beadwork and fry bread.

But I'm no poet, and there are few things worse than someone's amateur attempts at being Walt Whitman.

We had a grand thunderstorm in Pullman last night, and a lovely, cool morning. But Hell's Canyon lives up to its name. Hot. The river looks cold and fast, with periodic white, sandy beaches and sheer canyon walls so straight-cut in some places they look like a giant's staircase toppled over on its side. It's high-desert terrain, but once through Riggins, the whitewater capitol of Idaho (yes, it's true), the forest begins and though the steep canyon walls are still there, they are covered with thick green pines.

Riggins is a town that has sprawled lengthwise along Highway 95, having no room to go back from the road more than a couple of acres. The requisite Idaho art is for sale -- chainsaw-carved bears holding flailing salmon in their paws -- and there are several saloons and a lot of whitewater rafting companies.

The highway is maintained for miles by "Yahweh's 666 Warning Church," which can be found on the way out of town, an old building covered with hand-lettered signs about Jesus's coming battle with Satan. I would've stopped to take pictures, but didn't want to attract attention from the "minister."

A few miles up the road, the landscape changes again, into the brown-gold-sage of high-country open range, dotted with lazy, napping cows and fat, healthy horses.

I'm in Boise now, staying overnight. My goal is to see SLC tomorrow, then head down into Zion on Saturday.

By popular demand...

My sister's basset hound, Oscar, gets his safety on!

More on Idaho

We did go out Monday morning to cruise the river again, as you can see from the photos I added to the previous post.

Here are a few more. I'm in Pullman now, sitting in Cafe Moro, both laptops open and running, drinking cappucino and working on press releases via e-mail.

The cafe's stereo just had "I Want You To Want Me" playing. Washington appreciates some vintage Cheap Trick. Speaking of vintage, I'm sitting across the street from the Cordova, which is now a Foursquare church, but used to be a cinema. Twenty-something years ago, I had a movie date with the cutest boy I've ever met. We saw that Clint Eastwood movie with the orangutan. So cute. The boy, not the ape.

OK, sorry for the digression. Here are some more pictures from the Chacolet Lake and St. Joe River, including an abandoned boathouse that has become a luxurious beaver lodge. Didn't see any beavers or muskrat, but the lodge is impressive!

My own private Idaho

Lovely! Well, once I got past the roadside gun stores. Literally.

The lake, attached to Couer d'Alene Lake by the Shadowy St. Joe River, is gorgeous. Warm, clean -- beautiful swimming this afternoon with my sister. We also took the boat out along the St. Joe, which is really spectacular. Cottonwood trees line the banks, and the breeze was cool and carried the scent of the trees and the river as we cruised past dozens of osprey nests where mated pairs fed their babies.

We saw blue heron and cormorants, too, but the osprey are amazing. They are fish-hunting eagles, and the babies should be leaving the nests in the coming few weeks, but today, the parents were carrying fish in their talons to feed the young. There's one nest, atop a pole in the middle of the lake, where boats pass by all the time. We pulled right up to it, and the mother osprey stared us down with her big, yellow, fierce eyes until we moved far enough away that we were clearly no threat to her babies.

The river is calm and used to be used for steam boats traveling up. The remnants of the docks remain along the banks, but the grass and trees have taken back the landscape. There are hundreds of water lillies near the boat house, too. They had all gone to sleep for the day when we went out, but we're planning another ride in the morning so I can take some photos, and they should be out again then.

The smell along the cottonwood lanes is incredible.

It's very tempting to stay here for the rest of the week, which is possible. I'll just have to see how the timing will work with my Utah-Colorado-Missouri plans.

The road less traveled through Oregon

I really wanted to post a couple of pics I took today while driving through Oregon, but no luck. Maybe I used up all my luck yesterday.

Eastern Oregon is beautiful -- drove through John Day Fossil Beds on the way up to Pendleton, where I'm spending the night. The scenery changes from forests to golden buttes and back again within just a few miles.

I saw a little castle someone had built along the roadside, and a few sweet swimming holes on Long Creek. It was hot enough to stop and jump in, but I wanted to get as close as possible to the Washington border without stopping.

I also saw a woman with the biggest sideburns ever. Hers put Elvis's porkchops to shame, although they stopped just below her ears. Maybe the ponytail wasn't such a great choice for her.

Apparently, people in Oregon don't really have any concept of distance or time. I asked three people how far it was to my next stop, and every time, they said "about six or seven hours." In reality, it was two hours each time.

Regardless, it has been a lovely 14-hour drive so far. Tomorrow, I should be at my sister's cabin in about four hours. Ahhh, relaxing by the lake, hanging out with family and Oscar, the basset hound! I hope I get to see him in his lifejacket, which he wears when he gets to go out on the sailboat.

Moving day!

Just getting the last of my stuff into boxes and bags. My helpers will be here in the early afternoon, we'll get the truck packed up, stuff into storage, and I'm outta here.

Can't wait to get up to Idaho, see my sister and just relax on Sunday. For now, it's just "gotta get this done, gotta get this done..."

So I won't post long.

I am hoping to see Order of the Phoenix at some point this weekend.

Yep, I'm a Harry Potter geek.

Getting closer...

Move-out day is getting closer, and I'm getting excited to see people I haven't seen in forever. I have missed my friends. But I'm also excited to visit places I've never been before - Atlanta, Savannah, NOLA, Boston, the Carolinas...

Can't wait until I have some great stories to post from the road. And pictures, of course. I hope I'll be able to get ones like this, of the Georgia coast.

Very little packing left to do, but my apartment is a complete wreck. There's just a path through the boxes. Found a good home for all my plants. Kind of sad to see them go, actually. But someday soon I'll have a whole garden, I hope!

Flexibility is key

Slight change of plans -- a visit with my sister in Washington before checking out Utah, Colorado, the Midwest and on to The South. I can't wait to get to where the thunderstorms and lightning bugs are, though.


I'll have to pick up the new Harry Potter book on my trip and find some peaceful place where I can sit and read for about eight straight hours.


I'm anticipating a quilt of experiences from this trip, rather than some kind of epiphany, though an "I get it" moment wouldn't be unwelcome.

Another virtual pet

This is Seamus, an Irish wolfhound in my virtual pet collection. Isn't he handsome?

One of those days...

I've been thinking a lot about mom and dad today, and the upcoming trip. Mom would be worried, especially thinking I might be driving after dark. But I'm my father's daughter. He liked to pick up and go new places. He never minded starting over, either.

I love this picture of them, taken within the couple months before mom died. I like having it to look at, even though it's hard sometimes.

Someone asked me today why I'm doing this trip, and I think it's because I lost so much last year, and I need to get something back. I need to get in touch with my old self again, even just a little. I'm a very different person in some ways than I was a year and a half ago, but one thing that hasn't changed is loving journalism.

I cannot wait to see my friends -- especially Ms. Schnakenberg, who has been in Thailand for a couple of years now. No matter which route I take, I have to be in Sedalia, Missouri, by July 30 to see her.

OK. Back to the clips, clips, clips, and then the packing, packing, packing...